Chun bought the apartment in North Pattaya when Bitcoin (BTC) traded at roughly $270, valuing the purchase at around $785,000 at the time, and around $470,000 at today’s prices, a decrease of roughly 40%. “In 2015, I purchased this Naklua condo in North Pattaya for 2900 BTC. It was the first home I had ever owned… Yesterday, I sold this condo for 7 BTC,” he wrote.
Bitcoin has since surged to a peak above $126,000 in October 2025 and traded at around $67,000 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko, making the original 2,900 BTC worth $365 million at its peak (a price increase of roughly 46,500%), and around $194 million today (24,800%) at current levels despite recent volatility.
The sale also reveals Bitcoin’s outperformance relative to traditional assets over the past decade. Gold has risen from about $1,200 an ounce in 2015 to above $4,500 today (a 275% increase), while the S&P 500 has delivered a cumulative return of around 284%; substantial gains that pale in comparison to Bitcoin’s astronomical price increase over the same time period.
Early crypto real estate bets cut both ways
Wang’s story sits alongside a small but symbolic set of crypto-era real estate decisions by industry builders and investors, some of which have documented the reverse: selling their properties to go all-in on BTC, from an early adopter on a Bitcointalk forum post, who said he sold his house for 648 BTC in 2014 to Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
Zhao said in a February interview that he sold his Shanghai apartment for about $900,000 and used the proceeds to buy Bitcoin in tranches at an average price of roughly $600 a coin.
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During his time there in Pattaya, Chun said he obtained a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport and a US visa, while building and launching F2Pool’s Zcash mining pool.
“My time in Pattaya gave me my first real experience of living abroad and the courage to explore much farther parts of the world,” Chun said.
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